A business information enterprise system can improve an organization's ability to monitor and manage data in a complex business environment. For example, the system might store a large amount of information, such as yearly global sales figures on both a company-wide and regional basis. Different users may then access the information in different ways. For example, a first user might be interested in a normalized comparison of each year's sales figures as compared to other years. Another user might instead want to compare historical sales figures on a region-by-region basis. Note that many different types of data could be stored by, and accessed from, a business information enterprise system (e.g., inventory data, employee data, and/or accounting data), and that different types of data will be used by different organizations.
In some cases, a user or system designer might want to modify the way that information is displayed. For example, a system designer might want to add a “favorites” icon to an open or save dialog box. When selected by a user, the favorites icon might, for example, arrange for a list of the user's favorite items to be displayed (e.g., his or favorite reports or queries). Similarly, a system may be modified to support an entirely new type of information (and a user or system designer might want to determine how the new type of information will be displayed).
Approaches that may improve the ability to flexibly and efficiently update a business information enterprise system may therefore be desirable. Moreover, it may advantageous to provide support for new types of information in a relatively timely and cost efficient manner.